Wood Smart Phone & Tablet Projects

How to Make A Galaxy 6 Smart Phone Case

galaxy 6 wooden caseI am always intrigued by what kinds of things can be made from wood ... such as a wooden case for a smart phone. Some of you may recall I made a case for another smart phone a few years ago. It was really a prototype to see if it could be done and what it would look like. The case was a bit on the thick side, but other than that, it worked well and looked great, but most of all, you get to learn things when you actually go about making things, I learned lots when making that first case.

With the knowledge that my next case needed to be thinner, I decided that the best way to do this would be to make my own very thin plywood back, by gluing together veneers. Before I started this whole process I decided that the workshop and workbench was not the safest place for my phone. In all the handling that would be needed to be done, I thought it would be just like me to drop it on the floor or drop a tool on it and break the glass ...  so I made wooden blank of the phone, exactly the same size and thickness. This way I wouldn't have to worry that some calamity would happen to in the process.

To be honest, I tried a few different kinds of veneers that I had on hand, but that one that worked best for this application was some Phenolic Backed veneer that came from Oakwood Veneer Company. I sandwiched the Oakwood veneer between some plain, tight grain veneer I had on hand. The process is shown in the video. Once the back was made, the next process ...

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Making Mini Computer Speaker Boxes

iphone speakersMaking speaker boxes isn't anything new, many woodworkers have been doing this for years but in most cases they have been making BIG speaker boxes for LARGE stereo systems. In out case we are going to make small speaker boxes for ... oh, a computer, MP3 Player, an iPod or iPad, a Tablet or even an iPhone if you have the correct adapter. The ones that we made sound at least as good as the the ones that we used as donator speaker boxes, and they look good enough that you can put them out in public and now have to apologize for plastic speakers.

So! the first thing we had to do was to find a suitable set or donator speaker boxes. We wanted something small and of course they needed to "powered speaker", that is, they either needed batteries or a small transformer wall plug to power the speakers.

Of course your BIG speakers for you larger stereo systems do not need to be powered, there is more than enough juice in a full blow stereo system to power the big speakers. We found our donator speakers at a yard sale for, I think about $3.00 There are TONS of these little speakers around some with and some without the transformer plugs, but even if you get one without, you can still get a transformer plug to drive the speakers rather than using batteries all the time. The advantage with the ones that take either batteries OR use the transformer is that you can use these, with batteries, at the beach, at the cabin, hiking, canoeing or whatever.

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Make a Wooden iPhone or Smartphone Case

iphone or smartphone wooden caseI'm not sure why, but some projects when we work on them turn out to be favorites, and this is one of my all time favorite woodworking projects. It wasn't that hard to do but it did take time and detail to make a good job. Of course it is a "one only case" which means there is no pattern, you have to make things up as you go along.
All I really knew when I started was that I wanted a wooden smartphone case and that the phone would need to fit snug into it so that the phone would not slide out and get broken, and of course it had to look nice. I didn't just jump into making this case, I have been thinking about it for over a month and just mulling it around in my mind and trying to think of any pitfalls before they arise.
Before you get started ... a word about safety!! Cutting small pieces of wood can be dangerous! always make sure your wood is secure when it is being cut and that your fingers and other parts of your body are well protected and away from any cutting surfaces. TAKE YOUR TIME and work safely.

The first thing of course is to select the wood. With small projects like this you really need to take your time selecting the wood. It should be one of the harder ... hardwoods and needs to have tight, straight grain.

There must not be any voids or cracks. In my case I selected a small piece of Arbutus or Madrona that has been collecting dust in my wood storage room for a lot of years. The chunk of wood is too small to do much with but for a project like this, it's perfect ...

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Making and iPad or Tablet Stand

tablet standTrying to integrate technology into a woodworking shop can be a bit of a challenge, depending on the tool. It's pretty easy to purchase cordless drills, grinders, sanders etc. but what about bringing technical information into the workshop in the form of a Tablet or iPad?  To start off with, the tablet needs to have a place to stand, because you can's always be picking it up and holding it, and often your hands may be dusty or dirty, which you also don't want to transfer to an electronic device, so the first step was to get a stand for my tablet. I had looked at the dozens and dozens of tablet and iPad stands, but found nothing that really inspired me, yeah, they all worked but ... hey, this is a workshop and here we try to make nice looking, functional things out of wood - not plastic.

I decided a simple "sandwich board" type design would work well, would be easy to make and would look good. The first step in the simple design was deciding on what angle would work best for both sitting and standing, and I determined that 30 degrees was near perfect for both.

Since I wanted the stand to be quite rigid, I decided that making box joints along the top edge would not only look great, but once glued, would hold the stand together extremely well and last for a long, long time. Next I had to determine what wood that would look nice, yet would hold up well which means it is probably best being a hardwood, and what thickness would it be. Then I needed to .....

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